E30 Zone

Had to weld new exhaust hanger bracket to n/s rear wheel arch. Cleaned up welding area, looking for earthing point. Too lazy to grind a clean area off, so decided to use the rear disc as earth point. Got a 'spark' when touching Mig, so assumed all ok. Did a sh**ty weld of new bracket, saw smoke from under car, assumed from bracket welding. Oh nooooooo - when I got under car, I had fried my new Goodridge steel brake hoses - plastic all melted and brake fluid p**sing out All you welding buffs will know that, of course, the disc is part of the swing-arm, which is rubber-bushed to the body. Thus the only track to earth was through the steel Goodridge hoses, and they gave up trying to earth 100+ amps of current and fried. had to get lacal hydraulics place to make up custom new Goodridge cables/ends, cost Ԛ£30 and loads of time. B**locks!!

Silly boy, oh well it was only Ԛ£30, look at ti that way could of been worse !!

thats funny i do things like that and i always learn the hard way i would never of thought that .At least you did not set the car on fire.

Hehe, that's quite a gaffe. I once cooked a handbrake cable doing something similar - it was glowing red Worst was when I ruined the door glass of a car I was supposedly restoring with weld/grinding sparks

We all do it I suppose. Once while welding my beetle ( shocker!) I managed to set fire to the inner sound deadening and it nealry gutted the car!!

I was welding the inner arches so the heat spread a good foot across, something I figured wouldn't happen

Then there was a more personal injury, Ant witnessed it too, welded the exhaust up, nice tidy job, finished, tried to sit up, had to use my arm to push cos I'm getting old and managed to lean my forearm right across the weld, proper burned and the smell was ripe, left with a 4 inch scar to go with the one on the other arm when I tried to remove the exhaust from the car while it was still redhot! ( I think I may just be stupid actually )

Thing is these ideas all seem perfectly fine before hand

Mark.